Cedar Mill woman writes memoir about depression, mental illness

View full sizeGayathri Ramprasad's memoir tells of her 30-year battle with depression starting in adolescence.Courtesy of Gayathri Ramprasad

When she was growing up in India during the 1960s and '70s, Gayathri Ramprasad saw mental illness treated as something shameful, to be hidden away. So when she started to have chronic anxiety and depression issues, she struggled to get help. Her issues intensified after she moved to Portland for an arranged marriage and began to have children.

“I was a young, homesick bride, and after I had a baby I grew more despondent by the minute,” says the Cedar Mill resident, but she was afraid to reveal her thoughts to anyone. Even though she eventually sought treatment, Ramprasad continued to suffer and was even confined to an isolation cell at one point. That’s when her life started to turn around.

“For the first time I met others like me, and I realized they were brave and kind and funny and intelligent,” she says. Years later, feeling healthy and wanting to bring hope to others who suffered as she did, Ramprasad founded ASHA International, a non-profit organization promoting wellness. As she traveled the world speaking out about mental illness, she was often encouraged to write her story to help even more people.

Ramprasad hopes her new memoir, “Shadows in the Sun,” will do just that and “help to create a world where there is no stigma” for mental illness. “This is a universal struggle,” she says, “not an Indian story or an American story.”

She will read from her book at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside St. in Portland.